Monthly Archives: October 2013

We dressed Lucas as a monster and took him trick of treating this morning at the local nursing home. Between that and the sun going down he had puked all over his costume so he spent Halloween night raiding the candy bowl in my favorite jammies. Go Sun Devils!!

From our friend getting ordained online to Angel calling me fat in my wedding dress: the day was awesome.

At a Mexican restaurant we were talking about our gripes finding a minister to marry us and a few margaritas later a good friend of ours says that it’s on her bucket list to get ordained and marry someone. We tell her “great!” And the next morning have an email from her saying that the state of Arizona considers it legal if we’re really interested. I’m aware that my family had their reservations about it, but at the end of the day I would rather someone I know standing up there with us and saying our vows with us. And you know what? It was perfect. It’s also on her Google calendar once a year to email us a reminder that she has a “100% success rate” with marriages and not to screw up her stats.

Best officiant ever. This is also the friend who we visit constantly in Chicago with their 18 month old (and baby number 2 on the way!!)

And this leads me into the point of this post: I’ve spent exactly 3 years of y life legally attached at the hip to this guy:

How cute is he?!

There are so many fun memories that I have from our wedding day. From my adorable groom-to-be breaking his jaw 2 weeks before our wedding, to my maid of honor knocking on my hotel room door the morning of the wedding with a bottle of champagne and a bottle of Pepto Bismol and saying “One way or another, I’m getting you down that aisle!”

MOH mission: Make sure that everyone signs the papers to make this marriage legal

And perhaps hold my dress while I pee:

But my favorite memories of all are these:

While preparing for my wedding I was looking for my “something borrowed” and my “something old.” I went to my Grandpa’s house:

Rest in Peace. I’m so happy that you got to share in my memories of this day.

To look for a photo of my grandma and I to put in a frame as a memorial at our wedding. He pointed me in the direction of the photo albums and set me loose. About an hour of tears and searching later, I found what I was looking for and went downstairs. I can’t say what made me go back up later in the evening, but I did for some reason and went to the other side of the room that my grandpa hadn’t pointed to and pulled out an unmarked box (first thing I went to in that bookshelf). Inside of it was an album with a letter from my grandma about a “hankie” that has been carried by woman in the family on their wedding day and how it was her wish that the tradition continue as the family grew. After the letter was the “hankie” followed by pages and pages of wedding photos of women who have carried it. And of the women in the book, no one remembered (Lori, you were one of them!). I was shocked. And speechless. After I was able to compose myself, I showed it to my mom and then took it downstairs to my grandpa. I had it opened to the letter and I said to him “Is this something that I can do?” He read the letter and with tears in his eyes and a big smile on is face he told me: “Yes. But on one condition: you add your photo to the book. Your grandmother would have remembered to give it to you.” Well, Papa, she still did. Because for some reason I was drawn to that book in that box on that shelf in that corner of that room long after I found what I had been looking for. I was pretty torn up that my grandma was missing my wedding and 2 days before “I do” I was walking out of work and a white butterfly stopped me in my tracks and landed on my shoulder. (I know I sound crazy for all that comes next) The butterfly then flew circles around me and disappeared. I’m not even kidding. Not like it flew away, it vanished. I immediately smiled and knew it was my grandma. I just knew.

On my wedding day I carried her hankie with pride:

And my Maid of Honor’s duties were fulfilled. I made it down the aisle:

And here’s where the best memory comes in. After my dad handed me off and Angel and I were walking up to the aisle, he leans over and whispers in my ear with a big smile on his face: “Um… That dress makes you look really fat.”

Before you go and hunt down my husband with torches, allow me a moment for a back story. At our rehearsal I was getting emotional and I told Angel: “If I’m crying or look like I’m about to cry when I get down the aisle you’re not allowed to say anything nice to me because that’s going to make it worse.” He said “oookkkay?” with a laugh and I told him “Say something like ‘That dress makes you look fat'” so I stop crying. And between the rehearsal and going down the aisle we didn’t see each other or talk. So when we’re all lined up and one by one I see my closest friends leave me I’m holding myself together. My dad asks if I need a Kleenex and I say “no, why?” and look at him and he’s crying with a tissue in his hand. I loose it. And then our wedding planner says “It always hits you when you’re right here. Okay, go!” and pushes us along. We’re walking down the aisle and I’m crying and laughing and my nose is running and I’m a hot mess version of myself when I reach this waiting for me

And in the perfect moment when no one else can hear us, Angel leans over and says to me with a giant smile on his face: “Um… That dress makes you look really fat.”

And that was it. We both laughed and giggled through our whole ceremony. A few people asked why we were laughing and we told them, but most people probably thought that we were just giggling 12 year-olds at the alter; and we kind of were.

But our amazing officiant did her job flawlessly (my husband, on the other hand, screwed up his vows but I don’t think anyone else noticed besides Laura… including me) and we were married!

Let the party begin!

And “begin” it has! In 3 years we have bought a house, moved, miscarried, had a baby, moved across the country, and it’s been a “party” for the majority of our 1,096 days that we have woken up next to each other. I can’t imagine anyone else telling me that my wedding dress made me look fat and me not wanting to punch them for it.

I feel like the dad on Finding Nemo: “Don’t you dare move one fin!” “If you touch that boat-” It’s starting already.

I clearly have my hands full of toddler right now. And I blame it all on the convertible car seat:

This expensive acquisition has been a pain in more way than one. First, Amazon failed me for the first time. Anyone who knows me knows that I preach the awesome glory of Amazon like I own majority share in the company. So when we finally decided that Lucas had outgrown his infant car seat I didn’t hesitate to purchase the new one from Amazon. No. That’s a total lie. Have you seen the price tag on these?! All in the name of safety and 6 years of aesthetics.

I digress.

It’s like the purchase of his toddler car seat was the bitch slap that my brain needed to realize that my baby wasn’t a baby anymore. He’s a walking, screaming, toddler.

If only it was that easy.

The car seat came and I immediately tore open the box with the enthusiasm that was once reserved for packages from Coach. I’m tracking the package online for 2 days, running home to wait for the UPS guy, and the wind was taken out of my sail when I opened the box to find this:

I know that you should be careful when purchasing things online, but I feel like this seat may be missing a little something. It takes an extra week of returning and repurchasing before I finally get one that is usable. And once I install it, my little baby became a little boy:

He loved it. looooooooved it. He’s squealing, screaming, smiling, giggling, loving every second of being in the car. He stares out the window at other cars, and looks in the mirror and chats away to me in my rear view mirror. He’s in 11-month-old heaven. In his mind, life couldn’t be better than this car seat.

This triggered an overdrive movement to rid my house of baby bottles for the next few years. Round ’em up, we’re packing those suckers away. Goodbye nipples. I won’t miss you dish washing baskets, and if I never have to see another Avent bottle in my life it will be too soon. Well, Lucas had other plans. It’s like he knew that a sippy cup would make my life easier. So he was completely against it.

Again, I blame the car seat. When he got the car seat, he apparently decided that only this one kind of hybrid sippy cup/bottle was okay and he took to it like an ant at a picnic.

I have washed this sippy cup approximately 6,000 times in the last 4 days. True story.

…And then we went bottle cold-turkey. Pack that shit up, I’m done. D-O-N-E. Mark my words (except don’t, I’m a total softy when it comes to him). And while I’m at it, pack up everything nursing related! Those old clothes in the closet? Let’s throw those in the basement while we’re at it. Has he used this toy lately? ….I think you get the idea. I went hormonal mom on my house and packed bins and bins and vacuum seal bags upon vacuum seal bags away. And then for flare, I took the ptouch labeler to them all.

It was sad, I’m not going to lie. And then I hit the maternity and nursing clothes and got a good laugh out of my thought process: I’m sitting here looking at a wardrobe of fat clothes and all I can remember is them being too small for me. And that is why baby number two isn’t on the horizon: because I still remember baby number one. Until I can erase the memory of outgrowing maternity clothes with my stretch marks while hurling into the toilet in 120 degree heat, baby number two is a pipe dream. And I’m not going to lie: Those memories being refreshed in my mind made packing away his jumperoo and baby clothes about 600 times easier.

And then I hit that damn car seat. i just stopped and stared for a solid 5 minutes at his infant car seat. He’s never going to sit in that again. What happened to my baby?! He’s busy destroying the other room under dad’s supervision. But still. My baby wasn’t capable of walking up to a bookshelf to pull all of the DVD’s off of the shelf. My toddler, however, totally is.

You know what else my toddler is in the mood for? Chasing my fur baby behind the couch where she used to hide.

We’re playing nicely. I swear.

Which leads me to this week’s mom moment: Don’t you dare take those shoes off!

It’s pretty self explanatory. I’m in the car alone with my little man when I hear the swift tear of velcro followed by a giggle. This forces me to turn down my jamming to Kelly Clarkson, do my best to supress a laugh, and say in my best mom voice “Don’t you dare take those shoes off!” *rip* “Luuuuuuuucas!!” *rip* “Keep your shoes on!!” *rip* “(under breath) Damn it (ugh! There’s another 50 cents to the swear jar). If you take those shoes off, I have no alternatives except… to put them back on when we park this car at the grocery store.” And then I laugh at the absurdity of this whole thing. Mentally, I’m grinning at the fact that my little boy is learning how to take his shoes off while the practical side of me is adding an extra 10 minutes onto every car ride for the next 17 years.

Don’t you dare un-velcro those shoes!

Who am I kidding? I think this is just as funny as he does.

And here’s my weekly photo shoebox of what I’ve been up to while I’m not glued to my blog:

My shopping buddy

Mom! Can we get a ball?!

My hiding spot for remotes and phones has been discovered! He’s onto my antics. Sidenote: Why is my son never wearing pants?!

I’m just going to shut my eyes for a second. Don’t put me in my crib, I’m totally not sleeping.

Yesterday I tried to run to the grocery store for some ground turkey for dinner real quick before I put Lucas down for a nap. So I strap him into his car seat without his pacifier which is the recipe for a screaming match every time except when the stars align to give me the middle finger. I pull into the grocery store and open the car door to this:

Wouldn’t you know? The only time that my wolf-in-a-sheep’s-costume decides to peacefully, quietly, fall asleep on his own. So I leave him sleeping and do what every mom in her right mind would do: I pop his car seat into a cart, haul it into the store, and come out with ground turkey and a 6 pack of my favorite beer. I pulled into my garage, opened the car door, pulled up a lawn chair, cracked a beer open, and tailgated the afternoon nap. I would like to think that my drinking a beer in the garage alone while the school bus drove by classed up the neighborhood a little bit. You’re welcome.

In case I was still questioning if that was my new low or not, this afternoon I was graced with the pleasure of using the phrase “please take your penis off of the window” when Lucas decided to wiggle his way out of a diaper change and bang his bottle against the sliding glass window at the boy who was in our backyard to blow the water out of the sprinkler system. True story. The dog was barking, Lucas was showing it all off and squealing, and I just sighed and sat on the couch and let it all happen. I have 17 years left of picking my battles with this little man, and letting him go all Magic Mike in my family room just doesn’t seem worth the effort today. So, instead I just asked my son to remove his penis from the window because I didn’t feel like taking the Windex out to clean off a teeny, tiny print.

Mom’s, raise your coffee mug with me and say: There’s a chance this is vodka!

Lovely. I’m once again so far past my last post that I don’t have the time to tell you what I did. So here it is, in usual photo montage format.

Is there something on my face?

We took Lucas to his roots in Puerto Rico

When we were in Puerto Rico we went to a wedding and when I picked up our table card and showed it to Angel he says to me “They even spelled my name right.” I looked at him all confused and he said “Yeah. See? They put the accent on the A” Yep. I had no idea that was the proper way to spell my husband’s name. Wife of the year!

At the beach in Puerto RIco

When did he turn from a baby into a little man?!

After 3 weeks of travel to Puerto Rico and Phoenix, I think my little man started to get a little bit concerned that he was going to get left. For the record, this is exactly what my dog does when I try to pack: sit in my suitcase and start pulling things out. Tempting as it may be to leave my little man some days, he’s lucky that he’s cute.

Three weeks wasn’t enough travel, so we threw my sidekick and our dog in the car and drove to Chicago for the weekend. While we were there visiting the Gerstner family, Lucas got to finger paint for the first time. I think a little bit of paint even made it to the paper

In the resulting pink bath of the finger painting, our kiddos stopped giggling long enough to whip out one of these

A nice fall day in Illinois

Baby’s first pumpkin patch

When daddy works late, this is what dinner looks like: cut up cheese sticks on the family room floor. At least I put it on a plate.

It’s too bad that he doesn’t ever smile

All of these toys, and he climbs into the toy box. Go figgure

Giving Momma some love

Today, this little stink pot climbed onto the couch, took the remote, and changed to Mickey Mouse Clubhouse and then climbed off of the couch to watch TV. The buttons on the remote were a total coincidence but I swear it changed the channel from One Tree Hill to Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. Mommy makeover: complete.

I’m now required to share all of my caramel apple lollipops.

…Because this is what happens when I don’t

Yesterday i took Lucas on a hay ride and to apple pick at the orchard by our house. He was totally digging the whole thing

….And then he fell asleep in the backpack while mom did all of the work. Go figure